Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Mumps Spreads in Colleges in Midwest, 04/26/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june06/mumps_4-26.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is a virus?

2. Can you name some viruses?

3. How can viral diseases spread?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What is happening in Midwestern states?

The biggest outbreak of the mumps virus in more than 20 years has affected Midwestern states, and the disease is still spreading.

Less than 300 cases of mumps were reported in the United States each year between 2001 and 2005, but in the past four months, more than 1,500 people have been suspected or confirmed to have the virus. And the number of diagnosed cases has doubled in the past two weeks.

2. What is mumps and what are some of the effects of mumps infection?

Mumps is a contagious but short-lived viral disease that most commonly affects the salivary glands in the mouth. It's not usually life threatening, but it can have serious complications in teens.

It could be two or three weeks between the time a person catches the mumps virus and the time he starts showing symptoms, but once infected, the virus usually lasts about one week. Mumps rarely causes death -- no one has died in this outbreak -- but it can have some serious consequences. About one-tenth of people infected with mumps will develop meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord. But, more commonly, people will get fever or pain from swollen glands. The most common symptom is the inflammation of the saliva glands.

3. How does mumps spread?

Mumps spreads like the common cold, through sneezes and coughs, and from shared surfaces where mucus particles could be left behind and picked up by another person -- a process called "fomite transmission." This explains why the virus can spread so quickly in situations where people are close together, such as planes and classrooms.

4. What happened in 1967 and how did this change affect the number of mumps cases?

Before the MMR vaccination began in 1967, mumps was hundreds of times more common. More than 100,000 cases were usually reported in the United States every year.

Less than 300 cases of mumps were reported in the United States each year between 2001 and 2005.

5. What can an individual do to prevent the spread of mumps?

Mumps is untreatable, but the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination, usually received as two shots during childhood, has an effectiveness of about 90 percent, according to the CDC.

Even if people receive both doses of the MMR vaccine, health agencies suggest some general health practices such as covering one's mouth when coughing and sneezing, washing hands often, no sharing of drinks and cigarettes, and staying home if feeling sick.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Which vaccinations do your state, county and school require?

2. The CDC has said that two MMR vaccination doses are 90% effective in preventing mumps. The Iowa Department of Public Health has reported that half of mumps victims in this outbreak are 17 to 22 years olds and that one third of all people infected with mumps are students. If you were in charge of your state's mumps immunization effort, what steps would you take to slow the current outbreak and prevent future outbreaks? How effective do you think your plan would be?

3. Research the following viral diseases: smallpox, influenza, AIDS, West Nile virus and bird flu. Create a timeline that shows: the first reported case (and its origin when it's known), significant historical events related to the disease, and milestones in disease prevention.

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.